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I have recently changed my 220D for a much newer IS 200D F Sport, it has 225/40 R18 Front & 255/40 R18 Rear Tyres. The tyres are at 4.5mm and I will be wanting a change at 3mm !

Has anyone any good advice and experience re brand and what's good value to performance ratio ? Appreciate some view please based on actual experience. I have done some research and the minefield or reviews are astonishing between top of the line to budget. Not wanting to be a cheapskate just trying to find a happy balance !

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I was running for quite while on Dunlops Sportmaxx RT (on 17") and I would choose them again. They are pretty much the best on paper and from my experience probably one of best in real terms. I am sure Michelins and Pirellis are just as good, but they are significantly more expensive, I used to have P-Zeros on 18" F-Sport and they were lovely tires, I only did ~10000km on them so don't know how they wear, but they were quiet and sticky. I had very bad experience on Nexens. Based on previous discussions - Falkens, Avons are ok as well, but because they are not cheaper than Dunlops I really see no reason to choose them.

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Well....2½ years ago I had Bridgestone Potenzas and Turanzas and found them noisy and really awful for tram-lining. I too have 18" wheels same staggered set up as yours.

Read around a bit and settled on Goodyear Efficientgrip Performance 2 on the front. Very well reviewed, good in the wet, good on fuel and quiet too. Read a few quotes that confirmed absence of tram-lining. After driving a short while ...no tramlining whatsoever.

Also swapped the rears out for Goodyear Assymetric 2 ...very pleased with those too. Much less road noise in the cabin.

I'd recommend getting full geometry done on the wheel set up so the car is planted correctly on the road. I've always kept the pressures at 35 front and 38 rear and they are wearing nice and evenly.

There are many online sites to get an idea of size and price....somewhere such as Black circles is as good as anywhere to start.

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Thanks to Linas.P & normski2 for you reply and thoughts. I looked at a whole raft of tyres, the 255/40/18 being the one thats a bit more restrictive regarding availability. My Son has just fitted Coopers to his CT and they are at first light very good in all conditions ! No 255's though so I looked at budgets first since I drive slowly these days! Accelera phi tyres seem good value but mixed reviews. Looking at main stream again. Great idea to get the front and rear geometry checked when I do get tyres fitted. Update to follow and thanks for the advice so far, greatly appreciated.

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To give better idea on wear - now my front tires were replaced 29k and rear ones 25k miles ago. Fronts are ~3mm and rears are 3-3.5mm. Previous set was replaced roughly after 18-22k miles due to wear on inside mostly and secondly on the outsides. I still had 4mm in the middle, but inside of rear tire got ~2mm, and front tire was the same in the middle, but both outer edges at ~2mm. Because of that I did 4 wheels alignment and now running the tires at higher pressure 39PSI all around (bare in mind that is 17 inch, so ignore it for 18), as well I guess due to increased PSI now my tires wears extreme evenly, last time i checked it was literally within 0.2mm range.

This topic as quite interesting for me as well, because I am holding on changing tires on 17's and instead looking for set of mk3 F-Sport 18's so will be running 225/40 R18 Fronts & 255/40 R18 Rears as well. I am almost certain I will go with Dunlops again (btw Goodyear owns Dunlop, so I ten to believe they are on par in terms of technology).

@999101999 - I would advise against budget tires.. well exactly for the same reason - the cost. As far as I can see budget tires are maybe £20-£30 cheaper per tire, but they are likely to last significantly shorter mileage. Reason 2, from my experience and some other from this forum they tend to be fine at first, but as soon as they reach ~5mm, they often become dangerously unpredictable.. safety aside (which I guess is criteria as well) you are likely to throw away part worn budget tires, because they do not keep the same grip throughout wear. Reason 3, is obviously safety - tires are the only thing between you and road... it is good that you are not driving fast, but other might do and you might need to avoid situation ahead which is completely out of your control.. in such cases I would rather spend that extra £100 on tires. Finally, I would be with you - I mostly drive in city and at city speeds there are no such extreme situations for me to be very concerned about tires and IS250 I have is not exactly fast car, but based purely on money premium tires actually works out cheaper.

Now obviously, you can hit the pothole or puncture your tire prematurely and when it comes to replacement it is sometimes little bit annoying to replace almost new premium tire... However, over last 50k miles I had 2 nails in my tires and both times close to replacement time. If you keep the pressure on check to avoid premature wear then premium tires will "outlast their cost".

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Hankook Ventus S1 evo2 K117
These were on my car when I bought it and were excellent. Keenly-priced, nice and quiet and very grippy, especially in the wet (rated A). They were definitely more impressive than the Dunlops I had previously (Sportmaxx GT). The only question mark I would have is how hard-wearing they are as they feel quite soft.

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Thankyou for your comments and keenly taken on board. Living in the countryside, no motorways in our country, I don't do a lot of miles any longer ! I know I should have bought a newer petrol, but I do love my diesels :-). The tyres are somewhat subjective , 5k pa is all I do now but coming to the end of my service so mileage may go up again so hence the request for members opinions on tyres. Cost is always a factor but so is safety and performance of course. Lots of thinking to do before I get the debit card out :-) Might dnd up in midd range and will post an update later. Thanks again

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Hankook Ventus S1 evo2 K117
These were on my car when I bought it and were excellent. Keenly-priced, nice and quiet and very grippy, especially in the wet (rated A). They were definitely more impressive than the Dunlops I had previously (Sportmaxx GT). The only question mark I would have is how hard-wearing they are as they feel quite soft.

I have not tried Hankook's but here is the issue - as I have mentioned previously, I don't see these historically mid-range/value brands being cheaper or keenly priced. 225/40/R18 Ventus S1 evo2 costs £96/tire and is rated E/A/70dB (there is one for £87, but BMW/Runflat you definitely don't want to get), at the same time Dunlop Sportmaxx RT2 costs £76 and is rated C/A/68dB. Even worse for the rear - Hankook comes-up as most expensive on black circles.. above all Michelins and Pirellis ..

Black Circles. Your ones are without fitting. I have bought my rear ones like that and then had hard time finding anyone to fit them (nobody takes tires from outside), hence I always check price + local fitting.

Actually, K117 specifically comes-up at £87 with fitting (which is kind of right ~£10/tire), for some reason they are listed as Audi specific and didn't come-up when I searched by registration number, but I can find them by just putting dimensions. However, again Dunlops (at least on the paper) are better and actually cheaper at £76 fitted. I would be more then glad to give Hankooks a try if they would be say £66 fitted, but now they are not cheaper but actually more expensive.

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The OP wants recommendations for good value to performance ratio. No doubt Linas is going to chime in here, but I cannot praise Nexen N8000 tyres highly enough. Now I don't drive like a lunatic, but I've found these to be excellent value for money. In fact, the manager of place I get my tyres fitted commented that his brother has the same tyres on the same car and thinks they outperform much more expensive brands. I should add that I have 17" rims.

Kwik Fit mobile tyres do some decent deals on Goodyears from time to time - the fitter I had around for my sons car was a good bloke, took his time and no scratches on the wheels. Best to let them know beforehand though

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Thanks to everyone who gave me their thoughts, I am most grateful. I have settled on a mid range tyre for best value to performance regarding the 7k pa I travel. TOYO Proxis T1 Sport as "B" wet weather performance and good reviews on all the sites I visited. All four corners for £293 inc fitting. + Tracking front and rear £40 inc vat. The frnts at 225/40 were reasonable the 255/40 rears were a bit more money but overall good deal and a happy balance compared to budgets with poorer reviews generally. Thanks again for all advice, appreciated.

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Acknowledge the wear issue but a 7k pa max its not an issue and it was an overall cost wet weather performance balance . I will rotate out of this car in 24 months to a 2016 version so it should be ok -) Heard and read good things about the Uniroyals though so will be on my shopping list next time round

The OP wants recommendations for good value to performance ratio. No doubt Linas is going to chime in here, but I cannot praise Nexen N8000 tyres highly enough.

It was some time sine I had nexen's so it is possible they have changed since then. Sadly, I cannot remember which specific tire I had, but by looking to the pictures it seems I had N6000 (~2012).

Long story short they were dreadful. Hard, noisy, slippery... I did just under 1000km and threw them away (sounds bit dramatic, but the tire place exchanged them as used for fraction of the price). Based on reviews in internet they as well are unpredictable, in a way that depending on the wear they might loose grip unexpectedly.

Now again... I completely understand what good value tires are. It doesn't means they need to be cheap, but not most expensive ones like Pirelli or Michelin. For me that is Sportmaxx RT2's, but from what I heard Uniroyals are worth looking at as and ultimate value for money/performance candidate. What I found from my own experience is that premium tires are actually better value in long run.

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Goodyear F1 Aysm 3. They have always been imo the best tyre out there for road use and fast road. Outstanding in the wet and dry. Never had an issue with them and I had the Goodyear F1 Aysm 2 and Goodyear F1 Aysm 1 on my Honda Accord Type-R and BMW 330D M Sport and really gave them some stick.

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Hi ,just gone through all this deliberation on tyres, in the end I have fitted goodyear F1 asymmetric 3 all round ( 18 in wheels ) ,I fitted these prior to the start of our month holiday in France and have only covered a few hundred miles ,we are currently in Brittany so the miles will quickly increase .I have found them a big improvement on the dunlop sports on the car since I bought it ,very quiet on the motorway ,smooth and sure footed wet or dry ,and I know new tyres always feel great but I am sure the braking has improved .There was still 4 m/m left on the dunlops but I had lost confidence in the wet grip and when accelerating hard down a slip road onto the motorway the traction light would regularly light up in the wet ( wheel alignment checked OK ) They were 6 years old and quite hard so that would not help ,no problems at all now so we will see as time passes Dave

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Not sure what you went with in the end. I did hours of research on this on tyrereviews.co.uk, for value to performance it was between the uniroyal rainstorm and Goodyear eagles. Went for the eagles as they were only bit more and had covered more mileage on the site. The 250 feels like it has been through major handling upgrade program (it previously handled like a spoon in a bowl of soup with Budgets the previous owner put on it). To echo the numerous other responses here Eagles are amazing, I would never go back to mid range like I used to. The cheapest to buy them for me was Asda.

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NEXEN Nfera SU1, I have fitted these and had the front a rear geometry checked and adjusted to stock and so far,1000k in I am suitably impressed. Wet and dry weather handling has not been anything other that very good indeed. As a mature driver, ok old ! I dont stress them but we do drive professionally on Goodyear efficiency tyres and they have to perform for us when deployed ! The NEXEN's have done just as well if not better so far !

I am suitably impressed with Nexen and the warranty package is excellent should something go pear shaped. All in x 4 tyres inc geo checks and adjustments is good value £375 for 255/225/40x18 on an F Sport and so is the performance thus far. I will update as miles increase. Please see the warranty package brochure attached !